Expression Web 4 Licensing FAQ

Expression Web 4 Licensing FAQ

We’ve received a number of questions about the free upgrade from Expression Web 3 to Expression Web 4. With this post, I hope to answer the most frequently asked questions and eliminate any confusion.

The upgrade path for Expression Web 4 depends on how you acquired Expression Web 3. If you purchased a retail version of Expression Web 3 (e.g., from the Microsoft Store, from a local software retailer, from Digital River, etc.), you should download and install the Expression Web 4 Trial version from microsoft.com. The upgrade should happen automatically as you install Expression Web 4. In this scenario, the Setup program for version 4 locates your version 3 license in the Windows License Store and applies that license to version 4. After you have installed version 4, you are free to either uninstall version 3 or leave it installed.

NOTE: Please keep your copy of Expression Web 3 and your version 3 product key. Should you need to reinstall Windows or have a hard drive failure, you will need to first install Expression Web 3, then reinstall Expression Web 4.

If you have any other version of Expression Web 3, e.g., acquired through a volume license, MSDN, DreamSpark, etc., you should not install the trial version. Instead, you should get your copy of version 4 through the same program you used to acquire version 3. I’ve listed a few examples below:

MSDN – Browse to the MSDN download center to download Microsoft Expression Studio 4 and acquire your product key. Once you have that the product key, you should select Help->Enter Product Key to license your copy of Expression Studio 4.

DreamSpark – Browse to the download center location to download Microsoft Expression Studio 4 and acquire your product key. Once you have that the product key, you should select Help->Enter Product Key to license your copy of Expression Studio 4.

Volume Licenses – Visit the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) to make arrangements to download the upgrade. Your company and/or your reseller need to be registered with the VLSC in order to successfully download the upgrade. As with DreamSpark, at the time I write this, Expression Web 4 and Expression Studio 4 are not yet available on the VLSC, but should be soon. We will update this post when we have the link to the download page.

If your free upgrade to Expression Web 4 is not yet available from your supplier, please download and use the free trial version of Expression Web 4 at http://www.microsoft.com/expression/try-it/. When your free upgrade becomes available, you can uninstall the trial version and install the full version.

Some additional notes:

If you’re in doubt about whether your copy of Expression Web is fully licensed and activated, select Help->About Microsoft Expression Web and look for the phrase, “This is a fully licensed copy.” (Note: The information that appears when you choose Help->Activate Product or Help->Enter Product Key is not a reliable measure of whether the app is licensed.)

If you’re in doubt about whether your copy of Expression Web 3 is eligible for the automatic upgrade, select Help->About and look for the product ID which is in the form of a 5-digit number, a dash, a 3-digit number, a dash, etc. If the 3-digit number is 617, the Expression Web 4 installer should automatically license your copy during the installation.

If you acquired version 3 through a program like MSDN or DreamSpark but are no longer participating in the program, you are not eligible for the free upgrade. You are still eligible for the reduced-cost upgrade.

I have a boxed copy of Studio 3 bought directly from Microsoft. That phrase "this is a fully licensed copy" does not appear on my activated copy of Expression Web 3. Furthermore my 3-digits are 618, not 617.

Despite all this, Studio 4 installed and activated just fine (actually it told me it was already activate). V4 now says "fully licences" but the 3-digits are still 618.

It seems that the additional notes above are not complete, at least not for my existing installation of Expression Web 3.

philip

25 Jun 2010 3:11 AM

Can I install this product on my laptop and PC at the same time, same licence, or just on my PC (they are both mine and pretty much always stay at home, but I do work away from home now and again)

Yes. Expression Web 4 and Expression Studio 4 can be licensed and activated on, at most, two systems, e.g., a laptop and a desktop, which is exactly your scenario.

Paul Bartholomew

Microsoft Expression Web

Doug

5 Jul 2010 6:10 PM

We are running Expression Web 3 under our volume licensing agreement. I understand that we should now be entitled to use Expression Web 4. However, I cannot find this product in VLSC. I can find the following though:

- Expression Studio Web Professional 4.0

- Expression Studio Ultimate 4.0

- Expression Encoder Professional 4.0

Is there an ETA for Expression Web 4.0 as a separate product in VLSC?

Doug

11 Jul 2010 9:42 PM

Please do not bother answering my question of 5th July. I have the answer.

Thanks

Daniel Lauber

22 Nov 2010 5:31 PM

Stop! Do not uninstall Expression Web 3 after installing EW4.

I learned the hard way. Once you have installed EW4, do NOT uninstall EW3 -- or so says the tech guy from Microsoft who had to restore my license for EW3 and 4. I had uninstalled EW3 after installing EW4 (and it did recognize the license).

So nobody else makes the mistake I did, here's what transpired and how it was resolved:

Once I uninstalled EW3, EW4 would start, but would not allow me to do anything. Instead it gave me a message that "A licensing error has occurred. Restart your Expression program and try again. If you continue to receive this error message, reinstall your Expression program to make sure that the license installs correctly."

I first tried to repair EW4. At the end of the repair, I got the message with the headline "Install failed."

The message read: "Setup failed to install Microsoft Expression Studio 4 Web Professional. Licensing installation failure. Proof-of-purchase was invalid." It told me to "resolve the issue and start Microsoft Expression Studio 4 Web Professional setup again." Everytime I start Microsoft Expression Studio 4 Web Professional, I get the message I quoted two paragraphs above this one. I then uninstalled Microsoft Expression Studio 4 Web Professional and reinstalled it -- with the same result.

When I've tried to reinstall Expression Web 3 from my CD ROM, it rejects the product key. I've typed it correctly, but I get the message "Key is not valid. Verify and enter your product key again."

The bottom line is that I had to visit http://support.microsoft.com and submit a request for assistance -- giving them a credit card, etc. However, as the forum moderator had explained, I was not charged for the technical support since "all of our front-line engineers know that they should not decrement cases that are caused by licensing issues, so you won't be charged" and "We're not going to charge customers to fix an issue caused by a problem in our license store."

The next day a tech support engineer called from India and spent an hour with me repairing the licenses. I had to totally uninstall all versions of Expression Web from the computer. He downloaded a 10 MB license repair file to my computer and had to take over the computer for a bit to run it. I had to download a new copy of EW4 and install it. So far it's running great. The support engineer told me not to uninstall EW3, saying that EW4 might be dependent on EW3. I highly doubt that, but given that the last time I uninstalled EW3 it corrupted the license for EW4, I guess I'll need to leave both versions on the computer. Seems pretty bizarre to me.

I was NOT charged for the tech support.

Anyway, I hope this helps others avoid the problems I ran into. I will say it's pretty darned kind of Microsoft to give a free upgrade to EW4.

Toddney

29 Nov 2010 10:26 AM

"A licensing error has occured. Restart your Expression program and try again. If you continue to receive this error message, reinstall your Expression program to make sure that the license installs correctly."

I am having the same issue. It worked for 2 weeks and then this error. All of the programs in the suite will launch but error pops up immediatly and programs close. I have tried uninstalling reinstalling and even deleting the Expression folders out of the registry.

PLEASE HELP

-Toddney

Gary Bauer

18 Dec 2010 9:20 AM

Re: "NOTE: Please keep your copy of Expression Web 3 and your version 3 product key. Should you need to reinstall Windows or have a hard drive failure, you will need to first install Expression Web 3, then reinstall Expression Web 4."

Well, the RAID array with my copy of Studio3 self destructed (along with a whole bunch of data and other files). Fortunately my Studio3 key was in my Outlook archives somewhere else.

How do I find a suitable copy of Studio 3 so that I can start the long slow process of rebuilding?

I called Microsoft and they said that my product Key is a valid liscense but they can not help me with the install. I did a clean boot. but no luck. I am not a computer wiz. I am just an old student trying to work on my online web class that I haven't been able to start.

If you go to support.microsoft.com, there is a link at the bottom of the page that will allow you to contact a support professional. When you do that, they will ask for a credit card to open the case, but that card will not be charged for an issue such as yours.

Jim Cheshire

Microsoft

Danny (Belgium)

18 Apr 2011 12:33 PM

to Philip and Paul.

Thank you for your post Philip and your answer Paul.

I just asked (twice) the same thing to MS France, and they still confirm that Expression Web is a "mono-licence" and that I am allowed to install it on ONLY ONE station !!!!

Yes. Owning any previous version of FrontPage or Expression Web qualifies you for the upgrade to the latest version.

Daniel Gulino

26 Jan 2013 8:15 PM

I have Expression Web 3 with the '617' in the product license. I downloaded and installed the EW 4 trial version, which I thought would give me a "fully licensed copy" it. But when I check "Help - About", I see "This is a Free Copy." Why didn't I get the licensed version?

I realize the posts above are 2.5 years old now, but I had not heard nor seen anywhere that there was a time limit to the upgrade.